John, as I reflect on the past year and all of its challenges, I draw inspiration from the resilience I’ve seen among my colleagues and the people we have the privilege to support at the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC).

One of those people is Johannes Favi, who last year was preparing to spend Christmas separated from his wife and children, including his one-month-old son who he had not yet met. He had spent the past six months in immigrant detention at Kankakee County Jail in Illinois. “Hearing my 4-year-old daughter's prayer for me over the phone was very disturbing,” Johannes said after he was released. “She had only one wish and it was, ‘Dear Jesus, please bring my Papa home.’”

I met Johannes several months after Christmas, when the COVID-19 pandemic was starting to spread through detention centers and jails across the country and NIJC teamed up with pro bono attorneys to demand his release in federal court. He was one of 26 people NIJC’s litigation team freed from ICE detention in the spring who were at particularly high risk for the virus.

Just a couple of weeks after his release, Johannes joined me for a virtual briefing with congressional offices, where he shared his story to help them understand why spending $25 billion dollars a year to detain immigrants and separate families is not just irresponsible, it’s inhumane.

This holiday season, the families who remain separated by immigrant detention are still on Johannes’ mind. Remembering how he worried about his own children’s wellbeing, he’s organized fundraisers for families who are trying to survive while their loved one is detained. And he continues to speak with members of Congress to advocate for an end to the immigrant detention system.

Describing how an elected official’s visit while he was detained gave him hope to keep fighting to return to his family, Johannes told members of Congress during one briefing: “I learned from his visit that courage was not the absence of fear but the triumph over it.”

As 2020 comes to a close, I am so grateful to have the opportunity to get to work with and learn from someone as courageous as Johannes. I’m also full of gratitude for you—your support for NIJC and immigrants in our communities has allowed my colleagues and me to triumph over fear and continue to work with courage toward a more humane and just world.

I wish you and your loved ones a happy, healthy, and restful holiday season. I can’t wait to continue working with you and NIJC’s courageous clients in 2021.

Warmly,

Heidi Altman
Director of Policy, National Immigrant Justice Center

P.S. You can read and watch Johannes share his testimony during a congressional roundtable in May and see more pictures of his family on NIJC’s blog here:
https://immigrantjustice.org/staff/blog/i-think-every-day-about-people-who-are-still-detention-who-should-not-be-there-johanness